Climate impact mitigation potential of European air traffic in a weather situation with strong contrail formation

Air traffic contributes to anthropogenic global warming by about 5% due to CO₂ emissions and non-CO₂ effects, which are primarily caused by the emission of NO_x and water vapor as well as the formation of contrails. Since-in the long term-the aviation industry is expected to maintain its trend to grow,...

Optimizing Solid Waste Management in Semi-Public Spaces: A Case Study of the Efteling Theme Park

This research focuses on identifying and evaluating ways to improve the sustainability of solid waste management (SWM) in semi-public spaces using the Efteling theme park as a case study. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to apply an integrated waste management approach to optimize SWM in this context. The approach...

Robustness of climate-optimized trajectories and mitigation Potential: flying atm4e

Aviation can reduce its climate impact by controlling its CO2-emission and non-CO2 effects, e.g. aviation-induced contrail-cirrus and ozone caused by nitrogen oxide emissions. One option is the implementation of operational measures which aim to avoid those atmospheric regions that are in particular sensitive to non-CO2 aviation effects, e.g....

Climate impact mitigation potential of european air traffic

Air traffic contributes to anthropogenic global warming by about 5% due to CO2 emissions (about 1/3) and non-CO2 effects (about 2/3) primarily caused by emissions of NOx and water vapour as well as the formation of contrails. Since aviation is expected to maintain its trend to grow over the next decades, mitigation measures are required...

A sectoral eco-efficiency analysis on urban-industrial symbiosis

Urban-industrial symbiosis (UIS) is an important system innovation via sectors integration, and has been widely recognized as a novel pathway for achieving regional eco-industrial development. Eco-efficiency, as a mature approach and indicator, offers an effective tool to uncover both the status and trends of such a transformation. However,...

Eco-efficient value creation of residential street lighting systems by simultaneously analysing the value, the costs and the eco-costs during the design and engineering phase

In search of sustainable business models, product innovation must fulfil a double objective: the new product must have a higher (market) value, and at the same time a lower eco-burden. To achieve this objective, it is an imperative that the value, the total costs of ownership, and the eco-burden of a product are analysed at the beginning of...

Climate-optimized trajectories and robust mitigation potential: Flying atm4e

Aviation can reduce its climate impact by controlling its CO₂-emission and non-CO₂ effects, e.g., aviation-induced contrail-cirrus and ozone caused by nitrogen oxide emissions. One option is the implementation of operational measures that aim to avoid those atmospheric regions that are in particular sensitive to non-CO...

Eco-efficiency assessment of technological innovations in high-grade concrete recycling

The increasing volume of Construction and demolition waste (CDW) associated with economic growth is posing challenges to the sustainable management of the built environment. The largest fraction of all the CDW generated in the member states of the European Union (EU) is End-of-life (EOL) concrete. The most widely applied method for EOL concrete...

Insulation or Smart Temperature Control for Domestic Heating: A Combined Analysis of the Costs, the Eco-Costs, the Customer Perceived Value, and the Rebound Effect of Energy Saving

Calculating the environmental benefits of energy saving systems in dwellings in a life cycle assessment (LCA) has two major issues, namely: how to deal with the customer behaviour and how to deal with rebound effects. Both issues are important for sustainable strategies. From a user-centred design perspective, two fundamentally different...

Eco-transformation of industrial parks in China

During the past three decades, China has achieved impressive economic development. However, the pollution and resource depletion that accompanied China's rapid industrialization have led to severe environmental issues, such as ecosystem degradation, groundwater contamination and smog, which have turned into visible crises. In China, industrial...

Vepa: An Exploration towards sustainability and the development of an eco-efficient office storage unit

Through the use of eco-label guidelines, eco-design guidelines, and LCA-based environmental impact and sustainability indicators like Eco-costs, the Eco-cost to Value Ratio (EVR) and ReCiPe points, a boundary and baseline for new product development can be set to which an improvement can be measured. In addition to this the LCA based indicators...

Design thinking for repurposing used packaging timber

Timber and wood based materials like plywood have been used for packaging from a long time. As a normal practice the used packaging timber in India is used for repacking, as firewood and low-end interior decoration purpose. Sustainable eco-efficient repurposing of used packaging timber forms the basis for „DESIGN THINKING FOR RE-PURPOSING USED...

The energy and thermal performance of two university buildings in Southern Brazil with the aim of achieving environmental efficiency

This paper demonstrates the results of research concerning eco-efficiency at the University of Passo Fundo – Southern Brazil. Its objective is to identify the factors that affect energy consumption in buildings of Higher Education Institutions and to elaborate a methodology that can facilitate the evaluation of the degree of influence of each...

Enriching SCOR Model: Recapturing the notions of Business Strategy and Business Sustainability

The Supply-Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model, established by the Supply Chain Council, constitutes the most renowned state-of-the-art analytical tool when it comes to the Supply Chain Management domain. Although it enumerates several prominent advantages, which are mainly related to its systematic and holistic approach, there appear to be...

The search for the most eco-efficient strategies for sustainable housing construction; Dutch lessons

The QWERTY/EE concept, Quantifying Recyclability and Eco-Efficiency for End-of-Life Treatment of Consumer Electronic Products

The QWERTY/EE concept addresses recyclability and eco-efficiency of take-back and recycling of consumer electronic products, a topic currently receiving large international attention. Through the environmental part of the concept an alternative for usual weight based recycling percentages is presented. In addition, economic effects of take-back...

Changing consumer behaviour through Eco-efficient Services - An empirical study on Car Sharing in the Netherlands

Car sharing means more travel with less pollution: Eco-efficient services: Stop selling cars; sell kilometres instead

The product, or hardware if you will, still lies at the heart of the production and consumption chain, resulting in a significant environmental impact. Basing design on applied value instead of the product itself can offer substantial ecological advantages. Ir. Rens Meijkamp tested the eco-efficient service theory by examining car sharing...